AFTONBLADET: MARKETING MANAGERS ARE INCREASING WEB ADVERTISING

Seven out of ten media agency consultants that are working with digital media expect to see increased budgets in 2009. Half of all marketing managers will increase their budgets assigned for web advertising.

Aftonbladet.se has with the help of Opticom International Research asked 50 of their most important advertisers and 50 representatives from their most important media agencies about their marketing budgets for 2009. 48% of the advertisers claim that they are planning on increasing their marketing budget assigned for web advertising in 2009. Among the media agencies, 71% believe that their customers will increase their web ad spending.

A total of 88% of the respondents claim that their web based advertising budget will either increase or remain the same in 2009. When it comes to the total marketing budget, 39% of the advertisers expect to see increased budgets this year. The uncertainty is higher among the media agencies as 18% believe in increased budgets whereas a slightly larger share, 20%, believe in reduced marketing budgets.

The faith in web based advertising is very high among both advertisers and media agency consultants. 44 percent of the advertisers find the web being better or much better than other media channels. Among the media agencies, the corresponding figure is 45 percent.

– In these gloomy times I think it is great to see that there indeed are some positive trends as well, says Anders Berglund, Sales Director at Aftonbladet.se and the initiator of the survey.

There is a larger share of respondents claiming that they will increase their investment on the web compared to the share claiming that they will increase their overall marketing budget. This means that some advertisers will decrease their spending in other media.

– It is hard to tell which other media that will be affected. It could be DM, TV or Print. It all depends on the kind of advertiser, says Anders Berglund.

This article was originally published at www.dagensmedia.se 2009-01-07.